Mat tried to move his arm, his hand- even his finger. Any indication of control, even a twitch, he looked for it.

It didn't move.

Up to his elbow down, he couldn't move anything, as if his entire arm was now a rock, heavy and unmoving and robbed of any senses it once had. It was crippled.

"Something wrong?" Youmu said.

"Uhm yeah." Mat stuttered as if he was afraid of confirming himself it was true. He then held up his crippled arm with his other hand. "I can't move my hand."

Youmu gave him a contemplating look before she grabbed his hand- having a keen eye fixated on it. "The fire must've reached the mana vessels."

That didn't sound any good. "Can it go back to normal?"

Youmu said nothing, with the resounding silence telling Mat everything he didn't want to hear. It was a painful silence, like a grating echo jarring his senses endlessly. This was it. He just lost one hand. That really was a painful blow- both physically and mentally.

"Are you okay?" Ruan arrived shortly after, the purple fire that was her hair behind dying down. She was still naked, but Mat had worse problems to take care of. After a brief rundown on Nian's situation and Mat's condition, she sat down, holding Mat's crippled arm.

"Can you still use your magic with this hand then?" She then pointed to his three familiars up front, all floating in the air like green blobs. They were destroyed from the fire wave with their mana bodies all burnt, but even then they were still there- regenerating their bodies one bit at a time. They really couldn't die.

"I can try." Mat held out his crippled hand with his other then held it against the familiars.

His familiars- the blobs of green floating- swirled into tendrils of light that flowed from their current position towards his hand. They then seeped into the palm, prompting a ghost green glow of his arm apparent all the way up to his elbow.

"Yeah, I can still use my magic." At the very least, Mat wasn't robbed of his soulmancy magic. He still could use magic with his crippled hand. This one hand was responsible for materializing souls into mana forms, so he was glad he could still do magic with it.

Then, like a small feeling ramping up over time, Mat could feel a cold tingle in his crippled hand. It grew and grew into a cold pulsing. Now, Mat could feel his hand again, a cold feeling he couldn't feel before. He then tried moving his fingers. Mat's fingers twitched, and following after, he could move every part of his crippled hand like they were back to normal again.

"I can move it." Mat doubled back on himself, staring in disbelief at his glowing green hand. "I can move my hand again."

He clenched his hand into a fist and started punching the air in front like he was testing out a brand new toy, a grin drawn on his face. He didn't how it was moving again, but he was just glad he had two functioning hands again.

"Wait." Youmu said, bringing a finger to her chin as she then grabbed Mat's green hand. "Summon your familiars back out."

Mat nodded. He was skeptical but followed, pushing the green light out of his hand and back to the air, the light then coalescing back into three green blobs floating upfront. As soon as he summoned them out, he could feel the sense of control on his hand leave him again along with any senses he had just moments before. It was crippled again.

"Your hand ain't healed." Youmu gave away a sigh. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your hand ain't moving unless you have your summons inside your hand."

Mat then turned to his familiars, absorbing the floating green blobs back into his crippled hand. With that, he could move his hand again.

"So it's like that." His familiars made his hand work, like they were providing the power needed to work a machine like a battery. In a sense, he was grateful to them, letting him borrow their strength to help his hand move.

Mat stared at his glowing hand, clenching a fist. "Thanks."

He organized his thoughts. It was a handicap for sure, but he could still function normally like any other person as long as he kept his summons inside his hand. The only real downside was that, now, his hand was constantly glowing a green glow, and if he were to bring out his summons Amigo, Wingman, and Juggernaut, his arm would go limp as stone again.

Other than that, he was fine.

Mat then turned to Nian asleep on the ground, her bare body covered up by a blanket Youmu set up. He remembered how much pain Nian endured protecting him from the fire. If Youmu didn't have that health potion, she might as well be dead. "I can't imagine the scars on her body after all that."

"You don't have to worry about that." Ruan said, brushing her fingers to the length of Nian's arm before turning to Mat. Ruan also now had a blanket over her, covering her entire figure. "Scars don't form even at iron rank."

Right. Mat too expected burns on his hands from all the scorching heat and biting cold, but they looked perfectly normal without any hint of scars forming- aside from one crippled hand, they were perfectly normal.

Supposedly, climbing up higher and higher in rank can change the body in magical ways, though it was very different knowing about it and actually experiencing it.

With that out of the way, Mat then turned his gaze to the center of the dungeon room. "What happened back there?"

"The lich set us up a trap- some magic that activates after death." Youmu said, clenching a hand to a tight fist. "The body decomposed back to raw mana, and all that happened."

Youmu and Ruan were mostly fine because of Youmu's tank-oriented magic and her barrier, though both Nian and Mat weren't all so lucky to be near Youmu at the time of explosion. The proof was there, with Nian lying on the floor unconscious and Mat's one hand crippled. Still, things could've turned out much, much worse. It was scary to think of any other outcomes.

To be frank, Mat even was lucky to get out of that situation with only a crippled hand. Even his clothes were somewhat intact, though mostly burnt up. If Nian and his three familiars weren't there to shield him from the fire, he'd have died then and there- burnt to ashes. He really needed to thank Nian once she woke up. There's not a lot of people who'd do the same thing she did for him, and Mat knew he didn't have the courage to do that same thing for her. They just met a few weeks ago, but Nian was ready to give her own life to protect Mat. Was he so special to have that? Was he worth anything to protected? The answer was a resounding no, but Nian still did it anyways.

This fantasy world Mat found himself in was far more dangerous than Earth. He knows that now. If he were to continue here in this world- to survive and thrive and keep on living- then he'd need to grow strong. Far stronger than he currently is. He'd need to throw away his old, flimsy self to also have the chance to protect the ones he wants to protect.